I was wondering how owners put together their ooc schedules?
Do you try to schedule 10 humans each year?
Beatable humans?
Half human/ half sim.
This varies of course according to prestige, division, teams in your conference.

Do you schedule home-and-homes with specific teams?
Or, do you usually schedule vs the same humans?
I know there's a fine line between getting wins and improving your RPI.

For my teams, when I took them over with D- prestige, I made a point of scheduling cupcakes to get as many wins and try to improve my prestige. Now I'm in the C range of prestige, and there is more strategy. At this point I try to schedule 3 or 4 humans, 3 or 4 tougher sims, and 3 or 4 cupcakes to allow me to test young guys and get them some minutes. Sometimes, the human I schedule moves on by the time our game is played.

I've also tried to schedule no more than 1 team from each conference... and different 10 teams each season, except for 1 rivalry game.

Anyway, I was curious to know how some people made schedule choices.

Hugely dependent on your conference.  Always schedule the best teams you are confident you can beat.  As a rule I never schedule SIMS to home games.  I will fill up my schedule with humans I think I can beat (maybe a rivalry game or two each season also).  Then during conference play I sort the teams by RPI, and look for SIM teams in the top 150ish who will be returning 9 or more players the next season.  There is a sweet spot around RPI 80-140 SIM schools I try to shoot for (always road games).  The key is to find the SIM teams out there that have the  7 or 8 SR class.

If I'm in a mostly-Sim conference, I'll schedule humans only

.  If I'm in a human-based conference,  I'll schedule 3 road games vs. Sim teams, using the same pattern as clouseb

I try to take my team to Hawaii as much as possible

I'm with you colonels19, If I gotta go on the road, make it in a great climate.

I like to make distance teams travel to me... I will never make my team play an AM game in Puerto Rico.

Why is it advantageous to schedule sims on the road versus at home?

It's more advantaheous to BEAT sims on the road (or anyone) than at home because it helps in the RPI calculation.....wins on the road carry more value.......with that being said, RPI doesn't really help your NT seeding but it does indirectly help your conference opponents RPI which, if you beat them, helps your NT seeding.

When I first take over an AI-coached team, I usually schedule only AI schools for the first two seasons until my initial recruits are juniors and I have a chance to win some real games.  That allows my team to at least win some games to get a bit of a prestige bump in the first two seasons.

Once I have my program set up, though, I will only schedule two AI teams to open the season to tinker with my lineup and distribution without risking losses.  Then I will schedule all humans for the rest, trying to find teams who traditionally post respectable RPI's but aren't miles ahead of my team in terms of talent.  I figure if I can win at least five of those games, plus the two against AI teams, then I go into conference play with a 7-3 record and a good SOS.

I have heard some coaches say that you should schedule the toughest non-conference slate you can put together, but I disagree with that.  Going 0-10 in non-conference play is depressing!  I think you should put together the toughest non-conference schedule that still allows you a better than even shot to have a .500 record or better going into conference play.

I love non-conference scheduling, it's probably one of my favorite parts of the game. I always do it early in the season, although I've noticed most coaches prefer to put their schedule together a little at a time, or wait until closer to the end of the season. I probably shouldn't rush right into the scheduling so early, but what can I say...

I've got a 9-game road trip to Colorado coming up next season. My players, my assistant coaches and I are very much looking forward to it, although by the time we come back everyone's work ethic will have possibly dropped to 0.

^ hahahahahahahaaha

Davis, I agree completely. I actually never understand why coaches schedule tough opponents right out of the gate. There really is no advantage to that and I would rather "extend" my exhibition cupcake games out a couple extra to get the team somewhat figured out. Plus I just hate starting 0-1. It's deflating right out of the gate.

The key is to not schedule teams that might be sub 200 RPI. So I always schedule SIMs who to start the first two games who are likely to be high 100s RPI and hopefully easy wins. I also agree that scheduling the most difficult schedule imaginable isn't always best. If I can engineer a top 30 RPI and some quality wins and losses, I think that's great. Now if I am returning my entire team and expect to be elite, I guess that's different. Also what kind of conference you are in is huge in this decision making. If you're in an elite league, I would schedule 7 or 8 mid level sims who will be top 200 and then a few marquee matchups.

Ppk700 ... I like to wait until after RPI comes out before I schedule. The exception is regular series or coaches who are always good every season, even in down years. But I try to be careful scheduling first year coaches who may not stick around or coaches who are primed to take a down season. I can tell better who will be good, average, to potentially great after non conference. I've been burned repeatedly scheduling too early. I say schedule your home and home series first and wait on the rest. Imo

depends on my teams experience and my conference.

in my rebuilds where I have noone over a B IQ starting I'll look solely at sims.

if i have a majority of young players I tend to do 4 avgerage humans and 6 decent sims

once i have some experience I try to do 4 good humans 2 average humans and 4 decent sims.

and if I am loaded on experience I'll go 6 really good humans and 4 decent sims.

to find sims i generally wait for rpi/sos to come out and look at top ranked sims with a lot of soph/jr so when I face them next season they will be mainly jr/sr and hope they have a decent season.